How much do you notice? Actually notice?
Did you know that the ability to notice is a skill that can be improved? And that you can use that ability to improve your language learning capacity?
This week’s mindset podcast is inspired by the book:
Alexandra Horowitz — On Looking: 11 Walks with Expert Eyes
This book is a fascinating read. It highlights how a narrow vision can limit your ability to see the things that are happening all around you.
The premise of the book is simple. The author would take 11 walks around the city book with some carefully selected “experts”. Each “expert” would allow her to see through their eyes, helping her to notice things that she could never have seen without the expert’s help.
Expert is a term that is loosely applied as the first walk is with her toddler and the second walk is with her dog.
What Horowitz discovers walking her city block with experts such as a geologist, a doctor, a psychologist or a typographer is that there is a narrative that is happening all around that we rarely see. The history in a block of sandstone. The bug-eating away at a small leaf. The slightly lopsided gate of a fellow pedestrian. Or the subtle lettering on a street sign. All of these things have a story and say something about the world and without growing our ability to notice, there are hundreds of stories that we may never see of experience.
Apart from being a fascinating and eye-opening read, if you can take away the idea of looking to improve your ability to notice it can help you in two ways:
- It can help you stay present and avoid spending unnecessary time fretting about things that you cannot control.
- It can help you improve your rate of learning.
Both of these aspects of noticing things in the moment will improve your ability to learn a second language.
In today’s mindset podcast you will learn about the book, the ideas and some of the takeaways that you can test and apply for yourself this week.
Try the techniques for yourself and see if they help you with your ability to stay present when practising your Spanish. See if you can notice how a Spanish native speaks—the tone of their voice, the movement of their hands or the use of particular words.
The mindset challenge for you this week is to see if you can notice something that you have never noticed before on your city block. And for an additional challenge, see if you can notice yourself noticing things—this last test will really help with present state awareness.
Previous episodes mentioned in this episode:
How else can you apply the idea of “noticing” to improve your language learning skills?
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